Gay Marriage Uproar Hits Nintendo

Tomodachi Life sparks inequality outrage

Nintendo's cutesy Tomodachi Life for the 3DS and 2DS handhelds is, in the words of Nintendo, "a playful alternate world rather than a real-life simulation." That the company's defence in the face of accusations of homophobia anyway.

While heterosexual marriages are allowed - even encouraged - in the game, the same is not true of gay or lesbian partnerships. This has lead a 23-year old gay man called Tye Marini from Mesa, Arizona, USA to start a campaign called 'Miiquality' (geddit?), a video of which you can see below. It's a campaign to get Nintendo to add a same-sex marriage (illegal in Japan) option to the game.

Said Mr Marini in an interview with Polygon, "It's more of an issue for this game because the characters are supposed to be a representation of your real life. You import your personalized characters into the game. You name them. You give them a personality. You give them a voice. They just can't fall in love if they're gay."

He also told Kotaku,"Because the game has such a huge focus on relationships, this is a problem for many LGBTQ gamers. I believe this is a significant issue that should be resolved or at least acknowledged by Nintendo, so I started a movement in hopes to convince Nintendo to add same-sex relationships to Tomodachi Life via an update, or at least ensure that it is included in a future sequel—the Miiquality movement."

Nintendo, for its part has responded in a public statement, "The relationship options in the game represent a playful alternate world rather than a real-life simulation. We hope that all of our fans will see that Tomodachi Life was intended to be a whimsical and quirky game, and that we were absolutely not trying to provide social commentary."